Arts & Sciences

At a time when the American economy needs the best and the brightest economic minds, prominent banker and philanthropist Sam B. Cook has given Washington University a critical resource to help develop the next generation of economic leaders with a gift of $1.5 million to establish a professorship in the Department of Economics in Arts & Sciences.

Mark Alford, PhD, professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, participated Jan. 29 in a roundtable discussion in New York about the quantum mind theory of consciousness. Quantum mind is a fashionable theory originally proposed by physicist Roger Penrose that grounds perception in the periodic collapse of quantum entangled electrons in our brain. Alford, who studies phenomenon that can only be explained by quantum mechanics nonetheless played the role of the skeptic in the discussion, which was videotaped and posted on the web.

The inaugural class has been selected for the Professional Leadership Academy & Network (PLAN), a yearlong professional development program intended to cultivate future leaders at Washington University in St. Louis. And according to PLAN committee members, it was no easy task to choose the class of 26 from the “talented staff pool” of applicants.

Poet Kathleen Peirce will ready from her work at 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 10, for Washington University’s Writing Program in Arts & Sciences. Peirce is the author of four books of poetry: Mercy (1991), Divided Touch, Divided Color (1995), The Oval Hour (1999) and The Ardors (2004). 

Crop yields from India’s first genetically modified crop may have been overemphasized, as modest rises in crop yields may come at the expense of sustainable farm management, says a new study by a Washington University in St. Louis anthropologist.

In the Jan. 14 issue of Science, Washington University in St. Louis biologist Sarah C.R. Elgin, PhD, and 12 other biomedical research scientists recommend seven steps that universities can take to support the teacher-scientist, ranging in difficulty from educating faculty about research on learning or creating teaching discussion groups to creating (monetary) awards and named professorships for outstanding teachers and requiring excellence in teaching for promotion.

WUSTL has received a three-year, $500,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support a series of five “Vertical Seminars” in the humanities. The seminars are part of a pilot program to introduce an innovative format of collaborative research, called “The Vertical Seminar,” to the humanities. “The Vertical Seminar” will include scholars of different levels — dissertation students, postdoctoral fellows and junior and senior faculty — working together to examine a series of overarching questions in the humanities.

WUSTL will host a free Saturday Master of Liberal Arts (MLA) Seminar Series in February titled “The Value of Justice.” The annual seminar series features WUSTL experts from the areas of philosophy, social work, political science and anthropology to address one of the most enduring concepts in social, religious, ethical and political thinking: the idea of justice.

Washington University alumnus Julie Alexander will return to campus as the 2010-11 Marcus Artist in the Dance Program in the Performing Arts Department (PAD) in Arts & Sciences. While in residence, she will present a free informal performance, titled “Weaving Traditional Japanese Dance and American Postmodern Dance,” at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 1. 

Strobe Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and former deputy secretary of state from 1994-2001, will present “Angels of Our Nature: Polarization in America and Its Challenge to Universities and Think Tanks” at 4 p.m. Monday, Feb. 7, in Whitaker Hall Auditorium at Washington University in St. Louis. Talbott’s policy address will focus on the challenge of polarization in American politics, considered by many to be at its worst level since the late 19th century. He will reflect on the role of universities and think tanks, bastions of fact-based research and academic freedom, as antidotes to the current maladies of America’s political climate.